Expression and clinical significance of SPARCL1 and Snail in gastric cancer tissue

Liu Yuanyong; Yu Lijun; Liu Pingping

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1674-3245.2025.01.018

Abstract：Objective To observe the expression and clinical significance of SPARCL1 and Snail in gastric cancer.Methods A total of 187 cases of surgically resected gastric cancer tissue and 56 cases of adjacent non-tumor tissue specimens were collected from January 2018 to January 2023.Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of SPARCL1 and Snail in gastric cancer and adjacent tissues.The relationship between the expression of SPARCL1,Snail,and pathological features was analyzed.Additionally,the expression of SPARCL1 and Snail in postoperative specimens from patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy was compared with those who did not,in order to evaluate the effect of chemotherapy on their expression.Results The positive rate of SPARCL1 in gastric cancer tissue was 28.34%,significantly lower than the 83.92%observed in adjacent tissues(χ2=54.983,P<0.001).The positive rate of Snail in gastric cancer tissue was 77.01%,significantly higher than the 19.64%in adjacent tissues(χ2=61.387,P<0.001).The expression level of SPARCL1 was correlated with tumor differentiation,lymph node metastasis,and staging,while the expression level of Snail was correlated with tumor invasion depth,lymph node metastasis,and staging.The proportion of high SPARCL1 expression in the neoadjuvant chemotherapy group was 36.9%,higher than the 21.35%in the non-neoadjuvant chemotherapy group(χ2=5.505,P=0.019).No statistically significant difference in Snail expression was found between the two groups.Conclusion SPARCL1 and Snail can serve as biological markers for gastric cancer invasion and metastasis.Chemotherapy may influence the SPARCL1 phenotype in gastric cancer patients,but the potential phenotype conversion induced by chemotherapy requires further validation through large sample studies and more rigorous protocols.